I’ve always been surprised how hard it is to find Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises” in the public domain. A few years ago I stumbled on a link from that HathiTrust and totally forgot about it.
While doing some research on S.W. Silver (makers of campaign furniture), I stumbled on HathiTrust again.
If you don’t have a copy of “Mechanick Exercises,” go here.
The link is for the section on joinery. To download the entire book for free as a pdf, look at the left rail of the page and click on the link “Download Whole Book.” A couple clicks later and the entire “Mechanick Exercises” from 1703 will be on your hard drive, with the plates intact.
“My tent needs to fit in a single truck. This reflects the art of the Garde-Meuble (furniture storage). Spend twice as much if necessary but build a practical, strong and light furniture.”
During the last few weeks we have made a change to the way comments are added to the blog posts at LostArtPress.com. Based on several e-mails from readers, there is some confusion about it. Here is the straight dope.
We now ask you to register your e-mail with WordPress.com – or have an existing account with Facebook or Twitter. To register with WordPress, you do not need to sign up for a blog. You just need to enter your name and a valid e-mail address. You will not get spam from WordPress. It is simply a way to determine that you are not a spam-bot.
For your convenience, you also can comment if you have a Twitter account or Facebook account. We are not forcing anyone into the world of social media here – the Facebook and Twitter logins are simply for your convenience.
Why did we make this change? Simple. Spam and hate mail.
Like many blogs, we get bombed with spam – about 700 messages a week – that has to be monitored and cleaned out. We have to pick through that pile of garbage to rescue real comments that somehow got put into our spam folder.
And I got weary of reading an almost daily litany of profane hate speech from one IP address (yes we know who you are; you really should investigate getting a rotating IP address if you want to really remain anonymous).
So this change saves me about 30 minutes a day, which I can spend writing or woodworking.
If you don’t like the change, I’m apologize. But we are not turning back.
I have yet to see a wall-hung tool chest that gives me a tingling feeling in my no-no square. (That is the mark of good design.)
But this chest comes the closest.
This is a page from the 1907 tool catalog of Tiersot, a French ironmonger founded in 1865. The catalog itself is a wonderful trip to a time when hand tools and machines occupied equal space in the pages of catalogs. You can download the enormous catalog here, courtesy of Jeff Burks.
This tool cabinet, which cost the impressive sum of 400 Francs, is fairly well-equipped and organized. I wish I had a better scan to share.
I am wed and bred to the traditional tool chest. I’ve been working out of one since 1996 and have no plans to suddenly switch to storing my tools in stacking rubber boxes.
Sure, I’ve experimented with other systems (like when I experimented with lesbianism in college). But after giving them a year or two in parallel with my tool chest, I always went back to the warm embrace of of the big floor chest by my workbench.
If you hate tool chests, that’s cool with me. But you need to come up with a way to hold your tools that makes it easy to work at the bench. Since publishing “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” I’ve been asked about once a month to please, please, please design a wall-hung tool cabinet that is the equal of a floor chest.
Now that I’m juggling two book projects, I’m really not equipped to design a complicated piece of tool storage and give it a real-world test. But perhaps you are.
When I consider tool storage, here is a list of the things that are important to me. Other woodworkers at the extremes (French-fitting neat-nicks and those who are casual about tool care) will disagree. That’s cool. Write your own book.
1. Tools protected from rust, dust and damage. I spent a lot of time fixing up tools or saving up the money to buy my tools. So I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them rust or get cruddy. Good tool storage should keep the tools protected. Period. This is why I don’t like open tool racks (which I’ve experimented with a lot). The tools on the open racks are more likely to get rusty or (more important) go missing.
2. All tool can be grabbed instantly or by moving one sliding/swinging layer in front. Your tool system should not be a Chinese puzzle box. H.O. Studley’s toolbox is cool, but it is a tool-storage nightmare.
3. Tools aren’t obscured from view in drawers. When tools go into drawers, they seem to disappear from memory. I like tools in the open because of this simple fact: When you can see all your tools your memory about their location is much improved. I have to nudge my marking knife to grab my carpenter’s pencil, so it’s easy for me to remember where the knife is – I’ve seen it 100 times that day.
4. The storage is flexible without distinct spots for everything. I tried French-fitting my tools. It was a chore to make all the little racks and holder bits. Then I decided I wanted the shoulder plane somewhere else and so I had to change it all.
5. The tools should be in smallest space possible. When your tools are in a compact area you won’t have to walk across the shop to pick them off the rack across the room. It’s all right there, just within arm’s reach.
6. The storage should be inexpensive and movable. I’d rather buy more wood for furniture. And someday I might have a cooler shop on Russell Street.
This is a quick back-of-the-napkin list. But I think it’s pretty good.
I’ve always been surprised how hard it is to find Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises” in the public domain. A few years ago I stumbled on a link from that HathiTrust and totally forgot about it.
